“We can be outflanked,” said Hunlaf doubtfully.
“Only if we remain still and wait for them. But we will do what they do not expect – we will attack them!” Æthelfrith saw the men’s faces brighten. Action was always preferable to the long gnawing nerves of waiting. “I have seen Rædwald fight. He has no skill, no subtlety, but he is brave and strong. So we attack him. Kill Rædwald, and the rest will flee.”
“How do we know who to attack?” asked Hunlaf.
“Look for his helmet. It is the finest I have ever seen, and I will enjoy wearing it myself before this day is out.”
“You’ll have to wash the blood out first,” said Hunlaf.
The men laughed, clashing their swords on shields and armour, and Æthelfrith joined in. “There is a river right here. We shall make it run red with the blood of our enemies!”
“Right, I’m going to have a drink first!” said Hunlaf, and amid general laughter the men went to the bank and drank their fill. Æthelfrith watched them with pride. He turned his eyes further north and saw the horses of Oswald and Dæglaf making their way north along the Emperor’s Road. However the battle went – and there was a chill in his blood that gainsaid the confidence with which he spoke – Æthelfrith knew that they had sufficient head start to get away from any pursuers. Satisfied, he turned to look at the disposition of Rædwald’s men. So he did not see Oswald and Dæglaf halt and take up position by a copse of trees, watching and waiting for the battle to begin.
Chapter 5
Edwin was worried. He had formed his men, some twenty of them, into a tight shieldwall. To his left, Rægenhere fussed about the men in the centre, organizing them and pushing the end men more tightly into line. Beyond him, Rædwald waited for his son to finish his preparations. Two hundred yards away, by the causeway over the River Idle, Æthelfrith and his men stood in loose formation. Their horses had been taken over the river and picketed there, without even a single man to guard them. Edwin knew those men of old. He knew them to be skilled and brutal warriors, and though they were outnumbered, Edwin looked measuringly at the men lined up beside him and found them wanting. His own few retainers, men like Forthred, he knew could hold their own against the Northumbrians, for they were kin, but the East Angles were a more mixed bunch.
Rædwald’s plan was to use the three shieldwalls as three sides of a fence, and the river as the fourth, closing the fence tighter and tighter until Æthelfrith’s shieldwall was overwhelmed by the greater number and weight of the East Angles. But looking at the disposition of Æthelfrith’s men, Edwin feared that he was not going to fight in the way Rædwald wanted him to fight. However, he had no choice but to follow Rædwald’s plan – if nothing else, their numbers should tell in the end, for by his count the East Angles outnumbered the Northumbrians two to one.
Rægenhere was still not ready. Edwin inspected the ground between the two armies for any hidden gullies or traps, but the plants here were trodden flat by the confluence of all tracks, animal as well as human, onto the causeway. The river itself, as far as Edwin could see, was running cleanly past the causeway.
From across the intervening ground, Edwin began to hear taunts and chants. One warrior, as big and burly a man as he had seen, strode forward until he was within a hundred yards of Rædwald’s men.
“Is there any man there brave enough to fight me?” He beat his fist against his armour. “I am Hunlaf. If no man is brave enough to fight me on his own, I will fight two together. Come on!”
Edwin looked along his line. Some of the younger men, stupid with the pride of youth, shifted restlessly. One began to step forward.
“Forthred.” He had placed his most trusted man on the left of his shieldwall, and Forthred, nearer the young man, hauled him back and spoke quietly but viciously into his ear until he nodded in assent.
Hunlaf looked along the still battle lines facing him and spat. Then he loosened his trousers and urinated.
“Now I piss on the ground. After the battle I will piss on your bodies.”
The Northumbrians cheered and shouted.
Edwin looked along the line. Rædwald dropped his hand.
“Now,” he said.
The three lines began to advance. Hunlaf, in a sudden hurry, scurried back to his men, trying to fix his trousers as he went. The younger men among the East Angles shouted taunts in their turn, but Edwin saved his breath. He pushed his shoulder against the man to his left, trying to stop his line drifting apart from Rægenhere in the centre.
“Keep left,” he shouted, but the camber of the ground, falling away from the road, drew his men away. On the far left he could see Rædwald was finding it difficult to keep his line tight against Rægenhere’s men as well. Only the centre moved easily, for it had the road to advance upon. Rægenhere and his men were ahead of the two wings, although the plan called for Rædwald and Edwin to advance faster and seal in the Northumbrians.
“Hurry!” Edwin tried to move the men into a shambling run, but the wall began to break apart and he had to slow them down to remake the line. From the left he heard war cries, shouts and out-and-out screams. It sounded as if the battle had begun there. He tried to crane his neck, to peer past the line of his own men’s out-thrust shields to see what was happening in the centre, but his vision was blocked. And then the battle came to him, and he stopped thinking about anything else.
*
Æthelfrith watched the slow approach of the three lines of shields. He saw how easily gaps opened between the shieldwalls, how they drifted apart as the land sloped, and he knew what he had to do.
Passing along his own shield line, he gave out his orders to men who were so excited they barely heard him.
“Ulfric, Sigelac,” he said to the men on the flanks of his line, “take ten men and harry the left and right shieldwalls. Keep them busy, keep them occupied, keep them away from the centre.” He looked into Sigelac’s eyes, saw them distant and unfocused in the pre-battle haze, and slapped some attention into him. “Do you understand? Harry and delay.”
Sigelac, his gaze dragged away from the oncoming men, nodded. “Harry and delay.”
Æthelfrith turned to Hunlaf. “You’re with me, Hunlaf.” He nodded towards the centre. “Rædwald’s there – I’d know his helmet anywhere. We take the rest of the men and break the centre. When Rædwald is dead, the rest of them will crumble and we can finish them off.”
Hunlaf, his mind already retreating into the red haze of battle fury, grunted his answer. For himself, Æthelfrith wondered what gift the gods had given him that, even in the midst of the fight, his mind did not cloud over as most men’s did, but instead became as clear and calm as a winter’s morning. It did not matter. The gods gave gifts to whom they wished, and wyrd weaved it all into itself.
Æthelfrith looked up and down his line. The East Angles were within fifty yards. He always believed in letting the enemy do the work of closing the gap – his men would do the work of killing.
He raised his sword and pointed it at Rædwald’s advancing men.
“Whoever brings me Rædwald’s head keeps Rædwald’s treasure!” he yelled, and his men cheered, gold lust vying with battle lust in their blood.
Æthelfrith smiled. Rædwald thought he had trapped the Twister. He was about to learn there was nothing as dangerous as a Twister, trapped.
Æthelfrith brought the sword down. His men began to move forward, trotting first, slowly increasing their speed with the practised ease of experienced warriors, so that they would meet the oncoming line when they had reached their maximum speed. Most battles were won when, after many minutes of heart-bursting effort as the two shieldwalls pushed against each other, the strength of a single man failed, the shieldwall was breached, and the suddenly vulnerable warriors on either side were peeled off. It was little more than a contest of brawn, weight and endurance. Æthelfrith did not fight like that. His men attacked in a lo
oser formation, every warrior trusted to find a weak point in the enemy shieldwall and pierce it.
Æthelfrith’s teeth bared – he was smiling, the death’s head smile that had been the last sight of so many men. He could see Rædwald up ahead, at the centre of the line, his shieldwall jostling as the startled men tried to peer over their shields at attackers who were advancing in no way known to them. He glanced sideways at Hunlaf and saw the man had fixed Rædwald in his sight too. The warmaster’s stride lengthened. He held his shield out in front as a battering ram, its heavy central iron boss painted the dull red of dried blood. With the men on either side protecting him, Hunlaf smashed into the centre of Rædwald’s shieldwall like a bull charging a fence.
Æthelfrith jumped over the men sprawling on the ground and brought his sword up in a short killing arc under the chin of a man who a moment before had been trying desperately to free his shield from the wall so that he could protect himself. Blood bursting from the wound, the man fell back, crashing into his fellows behind him, the violent spasms of his dying body wreaking further havoc in Rædwald’s defences.
Behind him, Æthelfrith could hear Hunlaf peeling away the other side of the shieldwall, the clang of sword on metal giving way to the dull, cleaver thud of blade slicing and piercing flesh. Overlying everything were the shouts and screams of the dying and the killers, uniting in the war hymn that called the gods down from the skies and Woden’s eyes, the ravens, for their feast. Æthelfrith slid his sword in under the guard of the next man, and saw his eyes widen as the blade buried itself in his guts.
A shout. Above all the screams and cries, a yell of triumph, the sound of gold lust and battle lust, and Æthelfrith saw a hand held high bearing a richly worked helmet, with cheekguards and trailing mail.
“Rædwald is dead!” Hunlaf exulted.
Æthelfrith looked for the body and saw it sprawled on the ground before his warmaster. But there was something wrong about what he saw: a fresh face, barely bearded, and hair of the fairest gold, though now blood smeared. He looked up at Hunlaf shouting his triumph, and suddenly a raw dread filled the Twister’s stomach.
“That’s not Rædwald,” he said.
*
Edwin heard the howl above the shouts and screams, above the cries of men dying and calling on their mothers and their gods, above the clang of metal on metal and the thud of metal on flesh. He heard the howl rise above all the sounds of battle, and for a moment the fighting ceased. It was a sound that the earth might make if it were giving birth, or the stars if they fell. It was such a noise that the handful of Northumbrians who were harrying Edwin’s line quailed and fell back from their feints and thrusts with long swords and longer spears, and the East Angles turned as one to stare to their left.
From his position on the far right of the battle, Edwin looked across and saw that the centre line of the East Angles had broken down completely, falling into the confused melee of small fights that meant it was all but over. Among the fights, Edwin saw a Northumbrian wielding a helmet and shouting a triumph and, with a sudden lurch, he knew all too well from whom he had taken that helmet.
But that was not where the howl had come from, although there too, in the centre, it seemed that all stopped at the dreadful sound. No, the howl of anguish came from Rædwald’s flank, and from that flank Edwin saw a single figure break from the centre of the shieldwall and, still making that unearthly, tortured cry, hurl itself into the melee of men struggling in the centre.
It was Rædwald. Edwin saw that from the man’s armour, and he fell upon the Northumbrians like a charging boar, a man suddenly mad with grief, and his men followed him, their king’s rage and grief filling them with the lust for blood vengeance and his howl giving them the strength to exact it.
Near at hand, Edwin saw the handful of Northumbrians who had been occupying his forces quail as they too realized that the current of battle had shifted and the fatesingers had changed their song. Now was the time to act.
“Attack!” Edwin lowered his shield as a ram, and led his men in a stumbling but still coherent charge. The Northumbrians, assailed from both sides, broke. Some tried to run, to make it back to the causeway and the picketed horses, but the East Angles pursued them, flicking out swords to cut hamstrings and bring the men crashing down upon the ground.
In the centre, only Æthelfrith remained. Hunlaf was down, his bowels spilling, the biggest man in the Northumbrian army cradling them as he cried his way into death and called for his mother.
The Twister twisted. He was surrounded. The East Angles made a rough circle about him and Rædwald stepped into the circle.
“You killed my son,” he said.
Æthelfrith flourished a courtesy. “It was an accident; I meant to kill you.” From the sides of his vision, he could see the ravens had already arrived to feast and to carry the spirits of the dead warriors to Woden’s halls. He would be there soon. But still twisting, he felt for the right words, and found them. “If you hadn’t given your son your helmet, he would still be alive, Rædwald. He died because of you.” Æthelfrith was trying to provoke mad, blind rage in Rædwald. He succeeded.
The king of the East Angles brought his sword down and Æthelfrith met it, but such was the strength of the blow that half the Twister’s shield sheered off. Æthelfrith went to thrust his own sword into Rædwald’s stomach, but the king brought his shield down on top of the stroke and drove the sword into the ground at his feet, then charged the boss into Æthelfrith’s extended arm, breaking the bone. A second stroke with the sword, to Æthelfrith’s unprotected left, and the sheer weight of the blow broke his collar bone.
Æthelfrith stumbled. On his knees he looked up at Rædwald. In a mind that was rapidly dimming, he felt a supreme annoyance that he was going to die at the hands of a warrior who had none of his cunning – brute, raw strength had won the day for Rædwald.
“Make it quick,” Æthelfrith said.
Rædwald looked down at the man swaying on his knees on the blood-soaked earth.
“No,” he said.
*
Dæglaf grabbed the kicking and shouting boy as he tried to mount his horse and ride back to his father. He held him tight as he thrashed and cried, and he made sure that he could not see as, across the river, his father took a long time dying.
*
“Edwin!” Rædwald, his face smeared with Æthelfrith’s blood, looked around the watching men. “Where are you? Edwin!”
Edwin, the exiled king of Northumbria, stepped forward warily. There was a madness in the king, the madness of grief and vengeance, and such a fury could take many forms.
Rædwald, seeing Edwin, ran to him, grabbed him and dragged him between the bodies and the men who sat in mute weariness.
“Look.” Rædwald pointed to one of the bodies. “I have bought you your kingdom back, Edwin, and the price was my son.” Rædwald pushed Edwin down so that his knees went to the ground.
“Your kingdom cost me my son. You kneel to me, Edwin. You kneel to me, now and forever. Do you understand?”
And Edwin, king of Northumbria, knelt by the side of the River Idle on the blood-soiled earth, before Rædwald, king of the East Angles and High King of Britain.
Part 2
Throne
Chapter 1
“The king is dead!”
The cry went forth, wailing over the calls of the gulls, reaching up and up to the castle on the rock. Forthred, the first man down to the boat that had pulled up on the thin strip of sand beneath the castle rock, was the first man back up the winding rock-carved stairs. He found Edwin in the great hall, sitting in the judgement chair, delivering justice to the queue of petitioners before him.
Forthred pushed past the gaggle of arguing men and women, earning himself a few stern looks, muttered curses and a dig in the ribs in the process.
“My lord.”
Edwin barely lo
oked up. He sat leaning towards an old woman, cowled and shawled, who spoke no English but only the tongue of the Britons. However, Edwin knew the language well and Forthred, although he felt the news bursting within him, held back as the king did the crone the courtesy of bending his ear and mind to her complaints and arguments. She pointed a wavering finger at the mass of waiting, arguing petitioners, and Edwin waved a man forward, a minor thegn by the look of him, although Forthred did not recognize him. The king listened as they both spoke, arguing with each other, until finally he stopped them. Edwin looked up, for the whispers were now passing around the hall, silencing arguments and displacing conversation. He glanced at Forthred, who made to step forward with his news, but Edwin stayed him again with an upraised hand.
The hubbub in the hall had now died down enough for Forthred to hear what the king said to the plaintiffs. Edwin spoke, first in English and then in the language of the Britons, so that his meaning was clear to both plaintiffs.
“You set your word, each against the other. Answer now, tell me you speak the truth, and I will render judgement as I see fit.”
The thegn, his face florid with outraged honour and, Forthred suspected, too much rich food, launched into a diatribe against the old woman for dragging him before the king when he had been one of the king’s most trusted and valued men who had helped him subjugate the land and keep the peasants in check.
“Which king?”
The thegn came to a stuttering stop. “I – I beg your pardon, lord?”
Edwin looked mildly at the man. “I do not know you, and I have been king of Bernicia these past two years. So, I ask again: which king did you render all this service to?”
The man’s nose went even redder and his eyes shifted uneasily.
“The, ah, the last king, lord, but that doesn’t mean I don’t serve you as faithfully. It’s just that I’ve been busy on my land and my wife has been ill and…”
Edwin Page 4